Overdue fishing report from the last two months!

[Pode]

Hey all! I've been fishing up a storm, and I've even been on a few fishing trips in the last two months or so, so here's a few reports all at once!

In September I went up to the Catskills and bounced around some streams up there. Only caught one fish, but it was my first ever brown trout which I caught in the west branch of the beer kill. The water was high and a bit stained. I released the fish.



In October before the stocking, I bounced around the north branch of the raritan a lot, since that's close to me. Caught a ton of smallmouths and sunnies, but the most noteworthy were a big bass that I caught under the rt 22 bridge in early October, and a crappie that I caught twice an hour apart on two different presentations... luckily I took a picture the first time! You can definitely tell by the little dots on its fins! The crappie was at North Branch Park. The whole stretch of that park was great from late summer to mid-fall for smallmouth and sunnies with a couple of crappies too! Wherever I fished on the north branch, I usually used trout magnets or spinners, plus some ned rigs under bridges targeting the big boys.







In late October, I went on a trip with some buddies to the Poconos. We only went out fishing for one afternoon, at a small stream called saw creek, but we did well for ourselves! I caught my first ever brook trout, which I released in about a minute after a quick photo shoot, and we bagged two browns for dinner! All three were caught on Mepps spinners.









Last but not least, I went on a trip to north Jersey with my dad this past weekend. We fished different areas of the Big Flat Brook for hours and hours, but had no luck besides a MASSIVE rainbow (surely one of the stocked breeders) under a small bridge somewhere upstream of 202. I tried to rush it into the net, and it flopped off the hook halfway in the net and got away!

We then took a drive out to Vancampens Brook, which was absolutely gorgeous, and I caught a little wild brown trout on green trout magnet with a pinched barb. My first ever wild trout in the state! I wet my hand for a quick picture and got him back in the water in under 30 seconds.



Anyway, I'm slowly getting better, but still have a lot to learn! I'll try to stay on top of fishing reports in the future!

Bonus: A beaver at a small pond near my house, walked right up to me and started munching on some twigs not 10 feet away!